The Perseid Collapse

A Modern Thriller (Alex Fletcher, Book 2)

By: Steven Konkoly

Narrated by: John David Farrell

Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

How far would you go to protect your family? As far as Alex Fletcher?

In the very near future, an inconceivable attack against the United States will unleash a nightmare across the country - with a vast appetite for chaos and violence.

Alex Fletcher, former Marine, will wake to this brutally hostile landscape, thrown headfirst into an epic, near-impossible journey to protect and save his family and friends.

Join Alex Fletcher, along with his family and friends on this harrowing trip through a world gone mad.

The Alex Fletcher audiobooks:

• The Jakarta Pandemic, audiobook one
• The Perseid Collapse, audiobook two
• Event Horizon, audiobook three
• Point of Crisis, audiobook four
• Dispatches, audiobook five

©2013 Steven Konkoly (P)2014 Steven Konkoly

so far it's a really good book I enjoyed it

book is very good going to download second one now, definitely recommend if you are into post apocalyptic scenarios.

It's the end of the world. Are you ready?

Alex Fletcher is the ultimate suburban prepper. We met this ex-marine, technologist in the first book in the series and now his family is finding themselves in even more dire straits.

Steven Konkoly has written the ultimate EOTWAWKI novel with both a fascinating story, and a good example of how prepping can be done in a suburban environment. In the Jakarta Pandemic, a pandemic takes out the America economy and now the country has been hit by an EMP. Alex Fletcher and company group with friends and neighbors, travel to locate missing family members and deal with ongoing social and infrastructure decay. Love this series. Learning a lot and really like the characters!

“AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY”

Half a story

Ends before finishing and seems like a setup to sell another in the series. Some of the story line is pure fantasy but that's normal in this genre.

Great Story; TERRIBLE Narration

I loved the Jakarta Pandemic, which got me excited to dig into the Perseid Collapse. I'm about 2 hours into the book and I *would* really be enjoying the story if it weren't for the awful narration.

First, it's clear that the narrator did NOT listen to the Jakarta Pandemic to get a feel for the characters as presented in their debut. In the Jakarta Pandemic, Kate and Alex are actually pretty level-headed, calm, and realistic (given that they're not prone to panic) in their emotional expression. None of this holds in the Perseid Collapse. Instead, the narrator dramatically overexpresses every emotion for every character. He turns Kate, who was steady as a rock even though living some of her worst fears in the Jakarta Pandemic, into a whiny waif with a damsel-in-distress kind of expression. Alex, on the other hand goes from a strong, calm, and collected individual with a gruff, whisper-like inner monologue, and who tends to speak quietly but with authority, to a raucous, loud-mouthed individual prone to extreme emotional expression in every sentence.

Beyond the narrator's overacting, he has no depth and poor differentiation in his voicing of the characters. It's hard to describe except by analogy: The voices sound like they're right out of South Park. As much as I love the TV show's satirical subtext, it's character voices have no place in a semi-realistic contemporary "doomsday" thriller.

PUNCHLINE: I prefer to listen to audiobooks over reading them *because* of the narration, and I have been chewing through Audible books for years. As much as I really enjoy the setting and characters of the Jakarta Pandemic (and subsequently the Perseid Collapse), the narration is so bad and inconsistent with the characters' debut narration in the Jakarta Pandemic that I don't know if I can finish this audiobook. At this point, I may have to read the series the "old fashioned" way. Given the nature of the series, though, Alex Fletcher may approve.

Book 2 please!

The Perseid Collapse is the start to a great post-apocalyptic series. We join the fletcher family (and friends) a couple of years after the Jakarta Pandemic (if you haven’t read the book before this one it’s OK it’s helpful to get some background on who people are but certainly isn’t needed to enjoy this book) has passed and now are faced with a new issue (more on that a bit later). The book does a great job of mixing a bit of humor, lots of action and character development. The action scenes do a good job of keeping you on edge while keeping the action moving. There were a couple of nights where I had to pry myself away to go to bed. There are a couple of parts where the author goes into a bit too much detail of locations street names etc, but it’s nothing that takes away from the story nor does it go on too long to make any part boring.

Now for the issue that I have with the book, it resolves NOTHING!!! I’m sitting here wondering what happened to the kids? What’s up with Kate? I don’t even know for sure what caused all this. AHHHHH I have a problem with books that are part of a series that don’t stand on their own and leave you in a cliff hanger. The first book in the Author’s Black Flagged series is a perfect example of what I’m looking for, a book which resolves the issues and stands alone but allows for more to go on. This might be more of a personal preference but it drives me nuts. Either way I’ll be on the prowl for the next book when it comes out. I may complain a bit much about the cliff hanger but I really did enjoy this book and highly recommend it. Mr. Konkoly hurry up with number 2 please!!!

Bring back Joseph Morton

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Sure, if they have listened to the Jakarta Pandemic, otherwise, no.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Currently none. The characters don't seem to have changed after the 'end of the world' type of issue they went through in the Jakarta Pandemic, the narration makes it worse since the voices in JP are now gone and different.

How could the performance have been better?

Joseph Morton!

Did The Perseid Collapse inspire you to do anything?

Not read the follow up, and return it to get my credit back.

Any additional comments?

listen to the Jakarta Pandemic again. Not sure what exec decides that you should change the narrator, if it's scheduling then wait! if it's money pay up!

meh...

Not a very story story, more like a 'how to prepare fore the apocalypse', dressed in a narrative disguise. Not much real character development or other compelling story elements, but I got great prepper ideas :-)

Good book

Good book but the performance isn't the best. I just wish it had less profanity,

Simple, easy reading. Except the begining!

I think the narrator must have confused the first few chapters of the book with his DIY instruction manual for a technical product.

In the first few chapters every other word seemed to actually be a number, followed by a long series of words, and then a unhelpful abbreviation for those words, just to be less clear.

Once you get past that, the story starts to flow, but you will have wished you listened to the book "The Jakarta Pandemic" first, because, while its not an official a part of this series, is referenced everywhere.

And then, after that, in order to start enjoying the book, you have to accept the basic premise that society will just go nuts within one day of having no electricity and usable cars.

Now we can finally pay attention to super ex-soldier dad Alex who is the greatest prepper alive (its his business). He plans meticulously and knows everything about surviving the end of the world. Yet the first thing he does is send his wife and kids off in one direction on bicycles while he goes in another to find one of his sons.

The story isn't emotionally complex, there aren't any internal divisions and no moral angst over killing people who seem a bit suspicious. Just follow him and his entire family who think the same way while they complete meticulous plans for everything.

Despite all the problems with the story, its still an enjoyable read and the narrator was really good. I'm on the second book now because the first just ended. Yeah, just like that, wth; end, full stop.

First book by this author for me & I'm hooked!

I really got interested right off on the story, then the characters & storyline. Hated for it to end! I thought the narration was excellent as well.

You won't be sorry for getting this one!